


Darkly Nurtured Dreams

by aeducans



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dreamsharing, F/M, Lyrium Withdrawal, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:00:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeducans/pseuds/aeducans
Summary: There are two ways Ghilanel’s dreams can go these days.(Set in the world of an as-yet-unpublished longer fic focusing on Ghilanel's post-Trespasser pursuit of Solas.)





	Darkly Nurtured Dreams

There are two ways Ghilanel’s dreams can go these days. She knows, between the Mark and the lyrium, that her relationship with the Fade is strange and that’s why her dreams often are as they are, but that’s cold comfort in the night when the exhaustion overtakes her. She finds herself fighting sleep as long as she can these days because what comes between that and the dawn is rarely restful or restorative but even then, some nights are worse than others.

The lyrium nightmares are unsettling. Voices whisper incomprehensible but still threatening phrases that make her skin crawl from her scalp to her soles, prickling fingers of ice move over her. Or maybe it’s fire with how it licks and curls; she can’t tell but that it’s blue and aches and there’s a kind of heat so hot it feels cold, turns the skin red in its wake. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is it’s pain and fear that surrounds her, inhabits her, sits in her belly like a frozen stone and she’s powerless against it until she wakes, gasping and sweating and starving. It’s then that she needs to make the decision, to go to Sulahn and ask for her philter or not. For all the time she’s been trying, the decision hasn’t yet gotten any easier.

The other dreams are worse. She knows when she’s in one because she’s whole again, both hands present and perfect. Beyond that, though, she’s as powerless in these as she is in the lyrium nightmares. She’s not a mage and no amount of lyrium or power from the Mark really gives her the ability to move about the Fade at will. When she’s anywhere there, then, it’s because someone else put her there, and there’s only one person she knows who would do that. The same person who would offer her own hand back in a dream as a peace offering.

In case it wasn’t obvious enough, though, Solas always brings them to the same place, by the banks of the Enavuris where they fought to save his friend. She can see him across the water, standing on the bank regarding her. All the gleaming armor and furs in the world can’t change the shape of the man she loves, though sometimes he appears in the tunic he wore when she first fell in love and those nights are harder. 

From the first she spoke to him, begged and pleaded pacing on the pebbled edge of the water, fell to her knees and sobbed, threw her shoulders back and stood solid and tall as she made bold declarations of her intentions. _I will save you and no power in Thedas or beyond will stop me, not even you yourself, Solas!_ He never left the far bank and the night between them never got lighter but somehow she could still see how the weight of sadness increased on him, pulled his head and shoulders down the longer she spoke. Eventually he would turn as he’d done the last time they met and she’d be left as she was then, staring at his back until she slipped into blackness, then woke.

Lately, though, these dreams have changed. She’s still on the shore, as is he, but the world is not the same. At first it was just the ground. The short grasses clung to her ankles as she tried to walk closer, slowing her down, dragging her feet as she lifted them. If she worked hard enough, kicked her way free, she could still reach the water and address him. Then the stones at the river’s edge began to rattle and fly, clattering against each other and splashing out into the water, drowning her out. She raised her voice, shouted herself hoarse. Sulahn said those were frightening nights, that the shouts rocked her body in the waking world too, her spine arching and her limbs tensing like she was having a seizure. Perhaps that was why this didn’t last long. He never did want to hurt her.

And now, the dreams are the same every time but there’s no comfort in the consistency. The grasses grab and drag and trip her but she gets to the water’s edge if she has to crawl. The stones and pebbles pelt her as she stands, always striking her armour and only hard enough to make a sound, but the rattle of them against the metal is enough to drown out her voice. She knows, though, that even if she whispers he’ll hear her, so she does, a murmur, a chant, a promise. If their love isn’t enough to overcome this, her own purpose will be. As she speaks now her armour slowly changes, melting around her body slowly like warm wax. Her gauntlets bind to her tassets, forcing her arms to her sides, and no matter how wide she places her stance her greaves end up stuck to each other. It weighs more, too, as it melts, driving her to her knees then down onto her side. It’s heavy but but it doesn’t hurt, nothing hurts, he’s always so careful to make sure she’s never hurt. It just presses and presses. _It would not do this if only you would take it off,_ ma vhenan _. Set your armour aside. Leave this pursuit and rest._

_I will not. I cannot rest while you walk the path you’re on and refuse to see another way._

Solas no longer walks away but as Ghilanel lays on the stones, gasping under the pressure of her weighted armour, the waters of the river begin to rise. She twists, flops onto her back to get her face as high as she can, an action driven by practical knowledge but not by panic even though it’s no use. The water covers her ears, her chin, her nose, and she is submerged. The shore beneath her falls away and she tips, descending feet first through an entirely different cold blue, and as she sinks the moonlight cuts through the water and she can see she’s not alone. Solas’ limbs are free but otherwise he shares her fate, or she shares his, drowning with no resistance, accepting that their ends are an acceptable loss if they would stand in the way of this new, liquid world. The metaphor isn’t lost on her but even here she tries, flexing her legs like a mermaid’s tail to try to reach him. It’s that exertion that finally brings on the blackness, and of course she is dry and safe in her bed when she wakes.

Her arms and legs are unencumbered, too, but Ghilanel knows better than to believe she’s free.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](sulevinblade.tumblr.com)!


End file.
